Right now i have notebook with Nvidia 8400M GS (I know, it's not good card) and it's impossible to work normally when i'll plugin external monitor (1920x1080). Windows 7 can deal with it without problems (1440x900 on notebook + 1920x1080 external). On Ubuntu i have to choose one screen and turn off the second one. Even with only one screen Ubuntu (Unity or even Gnome3) sometimes hangs for a while, I've not found solution for this yet, but nevermind, it's probably because of my card or/and nvidia's drivers.

I'm going to buy new PC, but for now only with integrated Intel 3000HD, and my question is: Should i expect similar problems with this card? Here i've found link to Intel's webpage about drivers - "only community develop them", and i'm a bit concerned. I'll use then only one monitor (the bigger one), but how well does those driver work? Are there any performance tests?

4 Answers
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I also have an Intel HD 3000 with a Sandy Bridge motherboard (Intel DZ68DB). Not only does it run smooth in 12.04, but I can even play Wine games like L4D2 and WoW. Videos in VLC run smooth at 1080p. Best of all (Compared to the Nvidia card I also have) is that if I connect a video beam or another monitor it is detected automatically and autoconfigured on the spot. Pretty neat.

I have an Intel 3000 HD on my nettop. It's perfectly adequate for most tasks, even with a full HD monitor; however, I have trouble playing 1080p video without stuttering. I think this is because I do not have VAAPI configured correctly, but it's been very difficult to set up. This is a problem with most video cards under Linux, though, regardless of the quality of the card.

I have tried it with multiple monitors, one out of DVI and one out of HDMI, and it works fine.

One caveat: I am running 10.10 on my netttop, which is a bit dated now. I don't think the quality of the graphics driver has deteriorated since then, but the demands of compiz etc. may have increased.

I have an Intel HD Graphics 3000 card from the Sandy Bridge series. I can play games without any problem on external monitors.

The quality of the driver for Ubuntu 12.04 is really awesome, but I did not test with 11.10 or below. I also tried to play 1080p videos on a Full HD TV via HDMI and it worked like a charm with VLC.

The only problem I found with this graphic card is that Wine doesn't seem to like it, as I can't play loads of games with Wine, but since most of the commercial games I play have a native Linux version, it doesn't bother me much ;)